Esther unconsciously put out her hand and grasped June's arm; she
would have given anything had it been possible to run away. She saw
Mrs. Ashton turn and look towards where they were standing, and in
another moment she had crossed the lounge and was shaking hands with
June.
"I was just inviting Mr. Mellowes to come and dine with us," she said.
"But he tells me he already has an engagement." Her eyes smiled at
June. "I suppose you are the engagement?" she submitted.
June laughed.
A string band was playing a ragtime tune when they entered the
restaurant. To Esther's unaccustomed eyes the room with its flowers
and many lights was the most wonderful place she had ever seen. She
kept close to Micky as he threaded his way through the small tables
till he found their own, rather at the end of the room and away from
the noisy band.
He put Esther into a comfortable chair and himself took her cloak.
"You don't mind being left while I go back for June?" he asked
hurriedly; "she seems to have got lost."
Esther looked after him as he went quickly back down the length of the
room. She liked him in evening dress. If only it had been Raymond
instead!--she stifled a little sigh; she meant to enjoy herself this
evening; she was not going to allow one single despondent thought.
June and Micky rejoined her almost at once.
"I thought some one had eloped with you," June said laughingly. "Where
did you get to? Micky, how hot this room is--I'm just stifling!"
She threw off her wrap and snatched up a paper fan from the table.
Micky sat down between the two girls.
"Miss Shepstone didn't want to see Mrs. Ashton, I rather fancy," he
said coolly. He looked at Esther with a slight smile in his eyes. "I
believe she was afraid Mrs. Ashton would demand a reason for having
had her kind offer so cavalierly refused," he went on banteringly.
Esther laughed.
"Yes, I believe I was," she admitted. "I'm an awful coward over
explaining things to people."
"So am I," said Micky drily. He was wondering how he was ever going to
explain the most difficult occurrence of his whole life, and if, when
he had done so, it would ever be believed.
He looked at Esther a great deal during dinner; he had never seen her
so animated; her eyes were sparkling, and her cheeks were flushed; she
talked a great deal, and was particularly friendly to him; he was
quite sorry when it was time to go on to the theatre.
As they left the restaurant he noticed that she kept close to him
again, and that she looked anxiously round for Mrs. Ashton.
"It's all right," he said. "She's upstairs in the gallery."
She smiled. She thought he was very quick to understand her. Raymond
had never seemed to understand things without an explanation. She
wished he had been rather more like Micky in some ways; she
wished--she looked up at Micky guiltily; how could she compare the two
men?--the one whom she loved, and the other whom she did not even
like!
They were late, and the curtain had risen when they were shown into
their seats. The theatre was dark, and Esther could hardly see her
way. She put out her hand with a smothered laugh and felt for Micky's.
"I can't see," she said.
His fingers closed about hers; such a little hand it felt. He wondered
why she was being so kind to him to-night. He did not realise that she
was enjoying herself so much that she felt on good terms with the
whole world.
Esther sat between him and June, and Micky hardly looked at the stage
at all. His eyes turned again and again to her rapt face and the
eagerness of her eyes.
She had been to theatres lots of times, so she told him in a whisper,
but never in the stalls before. She asked him if he didn't like some
of the frocks worn by the people close by.
Micky's eyes flashed.
"Not so well as yours," he said.
She drew away from him a little, and he wished he had not said it. In
that one moment he felt that he had broken down all the friendliness
she had shown him that evening. She did not speak again for some
time.
In the interval June leaned over to him.
"Are you bored, Micky? You look bored to death."
Micky stifled a sigh.
"No," he said rather wearily.
His eyes wandered round the crowded house. There were several people
in the stalls whom he knew. He noticed that people were looking at
Esther, and he felt a little thrill of pride.
They were wondering who she was, of course. He wished with all his
heart that he could stand up in his seat and announce to an interested
world that she was the woman he intended to marry.
When the light went down again Esther leaned a little closer to him.
"Mr. Mellowes----" she said.
"Yes." Micky bent his head towards her eagerly. He could hear her
agitated breathing, hear too the little quiver in her voice when she
spoke.
"Did you see who was in that box on the right?--the lower box.... I
thought it was Mrs. Ashton."
Micky answered casually that very likely it was.
"Odd, eh," he said, "that we should dine at the same place and have
tickets for the same show?"
Esther said "Yes--yes" twice in nervous hurry.
There was something strained and unnatural about her, and though Micky
could not see her face clearly he knew that something had happened to
distress her.
"What is it?" he asked anxiously. "Is anything the matter?"
She shook her head.
"No.... No."
She sat very still till the curtain fell again, but Micky had the
feeling that she was not paying the least attention to what was going
on on the stage, and he knew that her eyes turned again and again to
the stage box. What was she afraid of, he asked himself in perplexity,
even if Mrs. Ashton did see her and recognize her, surely--then in a
flash he knew ... the light had been turned up suddenly, and in that
moment he saw the figure of a man move quickly from the front of the
box to the screen of the curtains.
Micky gripped the arms of his seat; for the moment he could not move.
It was Raymond--he knew it as certainly as if he had been told.
No doubt he had seen Esther, whilst she ... poor child! Had she seen
him too?
He looked down at her; she was sitting up stiffly, her hands clasped
in the lap of the new frock of which she had been so innocently proud;
her face was as white as the soft tulle of her sleeves, and her eyes
were fixed on the box with its velvet curtains where Mrs. Ashton sat
laughing and chatting with a girl in a pink frock.
They both turned from time to time to some one who stood behind them
in the shadow; once the curtains moved a little and a man's hand and
arm showed distinctly.
Micky could bear it no longer; he touched Esther's clasped hands.
"Are you ill?--would you like me to take you out?"
But she shook her head.
"No, no ... please leave me alone."
June had discovered a friend in a seat a row or two ahead with whom
she was trying to carry on a conversation; she had no eyes for Micky
or Esther. Micky gave a sigh of relief when the lights were lowered
again; he could feel all that Esther was suffering, he could put
himself in her place so thoroughly.
If he went round to the box and made sure if it were Ashton, perhaps
that would be the best way; he could manage to give him the tip then
to keep out of the way. He half rose in his seat, but Esther moved at
once, laying her fingers on his arm.
"Oh, don't go--don't leave me here," she said tremulously.
It was not the man himself she wanted, but his presence somehow gave
her a feeling of confidence; if, indeed, it was Raymond up there in
the box. She tried to argue herself out of the fancy; he would have
let her know if he had come to London--surely she would have been the
first to whom he would have come; she was mad to ever think the man up
there in the background could be Raymond.
But the conviction was there in her mind.
"It is he--I know it's he," something in her heart was saying over and
over again obstinately.
The rest of the play seemed endless; she rose with a quick breath of
thankfulness when it was over.
"You are in a hurry," June said. "Haven't you enjoyed it?"
"Yes, oh yes, but it's hot--I want to get out."
Micky was deliberately being as slow as he could--he blocked the way
out obstinately; the stalls were almost empty when at last they left
them.
June touched his arm.
"Micky--is--Esther ill? Look how white she is."
Esther was some little way ahead of them; she seemed to be trying to
get out as quickly as possible.
"It's too hot for her, poor darling!" June said. "Micky----"
Micky laughed savagely.
"It's not that," he said, "but Ashton was up in that box with his
mother, and she saw him."
"Micky----" He silenced her with a frown. He followed Esther as
quickly as he could, but she was outside in the cold night air before
he overtook her. There was a crowd here too--rows of cars and
carriages outside, and women in thin evening frocks and furs shivering
in the cold wind.
Micky drew Esther's hand through his arm.
"We shall find our cab this way, I think," he said evenly.
He had seen Mrs. Ashton only a few yards away, and he dreaded every
moment that Esther would see her, and see, too, who was with her.
A sudden block in the crowd momentarily hindered them, and in that
second a man's light laugh rang out above the noise and chatter of
voices.
Micky felt the girl beside him give a convulsive start. She tried to
drag her fingers from his, but he held them fast.
The crowd was moving again now; a second, and Raymond and his mother
were lost to sight.
Micky had slipped an arm round Esther; he was white to the lips. He
knew now how near he had been to discovery and the wreck of all his
hopes. He tried to pretend that he did not understand the cause of her
agitation. He looked down at her.
"Better now you're in the air?" he asked. "It was hot in the theatre.
I--Esther----"
She had swung heavily against him, and looking down in sudden alarm,
Micky saw that she had fainted.